SYNCDATE DocsMirror or Push: which one do you need
Push feeds one calendar from another and never touches the source. Mirror goes both ways. How to choose, and what switching later deletes.
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Pick Push if one calendar should feed another and never be touched itself. Pick Mirror if both calendars should know about each other.
You choose this on the sync screen, on the control between your two groups of calendars.
Push
One direction. Events copy from the source to the target, and the source is never modified — nothing gets written back to it, ever.
Use Push when:
- Your work calendar should show your personal commitments as Busy, but your personal calendar shouldn't fill up with work meetings.
- You're feeding several client calendars into one calendar you actually look at.
- One side is a read-only feed you couldn't write to anyway.
Mirror
Both directions. Every calendar in the sync is both a source and a target, so an event created in either one shows up in the other.
Use Mirror when both calendars are yours and you want either one to be a complete picture. Two work accounts after a job change; a personal Google account and an iCloud account you use on your phone.
The part that trips people up
Mirror doesn't mean the two calendars become identical. It means each one gets a copy of the other's events, and the copies still obey your appearance settings. If your title setting is Busy, a mirror gives you real events on one side and blocks labelled "Busy" on the other, going both ways. That's working correctly, even though it doesn't look like a mirror in the everyday sense of the word.
If everything looks doubled on your phone
Open one event and check which calendar owns it. An original on Personal and a copy on Work are expected when a Mirror connects both. Showing both calendars in one app can display the same appointment twice even though each calendar contains only one instance. Three mirrored calendars can show it three times when all three are visible.
For your own planning, show the original calendars or one complete destination view. In Outlook on the web, clear a calendar's checkbox to hide it from the view; that does not delete the calendar or its events. Other apps have their own display controls.
Keep the destination copies when colleagues or a booking tool depend on them for availability. Hiding a whole calendar also hides its originals from your own view. If Busy copies and originals share that calendar, use a different planning view rather than deleting the Busy events. A title change cannot make one event disappear from every calendar app.
If two copies appear in the same destination calendar, investigate overlapping syncs, another sync service or an old import. That differs from one original and one copy shown across two calendars. Do not delete similar-looking events in bulk; identify the writer and preserve originals first. If you are replacing another sync tool, turn its sync off first.
Why Mirror might be greyed out
An iCal or ICS feed subscription is read-only. Nothing can write to it, so a sync containing one can only ever be a Push, with the feed as the source. This isn't a plan limit and upgrading won't unlock it — it's how those feeds work. If you need two-way sync with iCloud, connect it as a CalDAV account rather than subscribing to its ICS link.
Switching later
You can change direction on an existing sync. Going from Mirror to Push means the calendar that stops being a target no longer receives new copies, and the copies already sitting in it are removed. You'll get a count of what's about to be deleted before it happens; read that number before confirming, because it isn't undoable from inside the app.
Known limitations
- A sync has one direction for all its calendars. You can't have three calendars where two mirror each other and the third only receives. That's two syncs.
- Free plans allow one sync, so "just make it two syncs" isn't available on Free.
- Mirror allows fewer calendars in a single sync than Push does. On Plus that's 4 against 10; on Pro, 5 against 20.
Related
Direction: one-way or two-way
Push copies one way and never touches the source. Mirror goes both ways. How to tell which one you need, and what changing it later deletes.
Plans and limits
The five numbers that limit a setup, what each one means, and which one actually stops people.
Show Busy to clients, full details to you
Work shows Busy, personal keeps every detail. A rule per calendar needs Pro; a rule by source calendar needs Plus.
Duplicate reminders on synced events
Choose reminder behavior for copies, identify which event sent each alert, and check existing copies before changing calendar-wide settings.
Personal → Work, shown as Busy
Your work calendar shows "Busy" when you have a personal appointment, and nobody at work sees what it is. Nothing is written to your personal calendar.
iCloud ↔ Google, both directions
Add an event on your iPhone or your laptop and it shows up on the other, with its real title and location. Works on the Free plan with two calendars.
Connect a shared Outlook calendar
How Microsoft consent and calendar sharing work together, and when a shared calendar can be a sync source or target.
What counts as a calendar, a sync, and an account
Accounts, calendars and syncs are three different things and your plan limits each one separately. What each word means, and which limit you're hitting.